Ultimate Fighting Marketing

Warning: You might not like what I’m about to discuss, but bear with me, there are important lessons for your business here, so don’t discount the source – even though you may think this activity signifies the end of civilization.

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The big news here in Toronto this weekend was that the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) was in town.

The show played to a record 55,000 person jam-packed stadium (grossing $11 million in gate revenue).

Now I didn’t go to the event (I’m way too lazy to deal with 55,000 testosterone-booze-energy drink-fueled MMA fans), but the UFC does something smart – actually 4 things – with their marketing that ALMOST convinced me to pay $50 for the pay-per-view to watch at home.

Here’s why I was “that close” to buying the Pay-Per-View:

The BIG Reason – They give away great content for free.

I got home from Chicago early Saturday evening, made some dinner and sat down in front of the TV for a bit.

I flipped around between the sports channels, and boom. I landed on the preliminary undercard fights, shown live from the sold-out stadium.

It was high-energy, and they kept on hyping the main event.

I tried not to watch, but I got sucked in…although not enough to actually buy the Pay-Per-View. Fortunately I went out and did something a lot more sociable with friends.

Now I don’t know how many extra pay-per-view sales that makes them, but I’ll bet it’s significant.

That’s the benefit of giving away great free content.

So what does that mean for YOUR website business?

When prospects land on your site, you should offer them an incredible free report or video that shows them that you are a passionate, knowledgeable, likeable, trustworthy person who clearly has more great information to offer.

But anyways, giving away content for free is not the only reason the UFC is so popular.

Here are 3 other reasons it’s built up a hard-core fan following:

1) There’re massive amounts of personality in the marketing.

From Dana White to the fighter’s trash-talking, there’s no shortage of personality and entertainment in a UFC show.

And while you don’t need to call anyone names, you need to avoid Dan Kennedy’s #1 marketing sin – and that means you need to avoid being BORING.

Give your readers as much passion as you can.

2) They hold live events & treat their customers like gold.

And I don’t just mean the fights, but they also have a massive fan expo with every event that allows the fans to meet the fighters.

In our world of website businesses, I truly believe that having your own live event is the best way to connect with your fans.

Your best customers want to know you, meet you, and thank you for the help you’ve given them.

3) They create their own language and sub-culture, and they are not afraid to exclude or upset “non-fans”

Dana White, the President of the UFC, doesn’t care if you don’t like him.

What he wants is for you to like the fighters, to buy the Pay-Per-Views, to wear the clothing, to talk-the-talk to debate “who’s the best fighter ever” on message boards, and to get fully, completely engrossed in the UFC.

It’s all built for the fans, not for the critics.

And so you have to create messages that fire up your fans, and you have to ignore your critics.

People who don’t like you will say bad things about you, that’s guaranteed.

But criticism can’t take money out of your bank account, while customer loyalty and appreciation can put money in.

Make sure you take care of and deliver content to the people who matter – your customers.

Bring those battle lessons to your business,

Craig Ballantyne

“The best way to guarantee you’ll accomplish an objective is to make it your #1 priority.” – Michael Masterson

Question on the email newsletter. Is there a specific reason why you don’t have a link back to the internetindependence.com mainpage at the bottom of every newsletter? In today’s newsletter (the above post) I had to come back to internetindependence.com to see the link to the xtreme fat loss diet page – not that that bothers me. But in order to so do I had to open a new tab manually and type in internetindependence.com manually (as I don’t use too many bookmarks). Thanks.

About ETR

Early To Rise delivers science-based systems and structures to help people achieve a higher level of performance. We share proven strategies for success and help our readers steer clear of fads, gimmicks, and frauds. This ensures a win-win relationship between our readers and ETR, and creates faster results for everyone.